Recent content by nearly50

I had a friend back in the 70's who built a pair of Klipshorns from scratch. They were awesome. I never got into horns, but the best sounding speaker I ever heard in my life I built out of a discarded open-back TV cabinet (21" B/W Westinghouse if I recall correctly) when they were still made...

Here's a snapshot of the view from the hilltop. The smoke rising from the jungle is betel nut husks being burned to heat bath water at the various farms in the valley.

Everyone there has a generator as backup. Power lines are already on site, but the power is notoriously fickle. To prevent my freezer from thawing, my bore well pump operating, and my television and computer running, I'll use an automatic generator that runs on an LPG fuel tank which is also...

Hi, Brewer: Bangalore is not my first choice for health care. Sorry if I gave that false impression. The nearest town is Puttur (pop. 48000), about 20 minutes away on relatively good roads. Many decent private hospitals there. Mangalore (pop. 540000) is about 45 minutes (15 miles) away, and has...

Healthcare is one of the reasons for moving there. Medical care is much less expensive than in the US. Plus two of my sister-in-laws are doctors in Bangalore, so I think I'm well covered in that arena. Private health insurance is about Rs 20000 per year if you want to buy it (that's about...

Inspired by the Off To Thailand topic, I am thinking about moving to India semi-permanently. My wife's uncle has 20 acres that he farms (betel nuts and bananas) just east of Mangalore. It's situated in rolling hillside country, lush with palms and rice paddies, about 25 km inland from the...

Constitutional Amendment Before any tax increase in enacted into law, all Representatives and Senators, and their spouses and dependents, must liquidate and pay 95% of their total net worth prior to the tax increase going into effect.

Dr. Evil is spinning in his chair! ONE MILLION DOLLARS!

Pixies, Throwing Muses, Thin White Rope, fIREHOSE are 4 that come immediately to mind. YMMV.

CPI came in at 1.2% for September.

The city of New Orleans is dead, may she rest in peace. The scenes I have seen out of there today remind me of the Road Warrior, buses fleeing the city, gangs terrorizing the refugees, no civil authority. Either that, or Beirut in the 70's.

Nearly 50. Duh!

I've been playing with this for about a week now. It's a lot of fun looking for things left outside. I suggest you check out Edwards AFB (34 57'N 117 53'W) and see if you can find the SR-71's parked outside. The boneyard at Davis Monthan AFB (32 9'N 110 50'W) is also quite interesting to poke...

While true that spending on luxury class items like the aforementioned Lexus and overseas vacations probably decline, there's a baseline level that everyone needs to spend just to maintain a life, and this is increasing as time goes on. Could it possibly be that spending goes down as you age...

Re: Its funny joke Thursday! I went into my proctologist's office for my first rectal exam. His new nurse, Elaine, took me to an examining room and told me to get undressed and have a seat until the doctor could see me. She said that he would only be a few minutes. After putting on the gown...